Teens Unlikely to Meet Reading Goal, RAND Report Warns

As researchers and policymakers turn attention and resources to boosting adolescent literacy, an analysis of students’ performance on state and national tests holds out scant hope that schools will come close to meeting federal goals for reading achievement over the next decade.

The report, “Achieving State and National Literacy Goals, a Long Uphill Road,” prepared by the Santa Monica, Calif.-based RAND Corp. for the Carnegie Corporation of New York, suggests that inadequate progress is being made to bring more students to proficiency in reading by the 2014 deadline set by the No Child Left Behind Act.

“Recent reform efforts in education have yielded positive results in improving reading achievement for the nation’s children in the primary grades, but many children are not moving beyond basic decoding skills to fluency and comprehension,” the report,...